Chicago Cubs pitchers and catchers report to camp today. In a feature from the Sporting News 2013 Baseball Yearbook, Scot Gregor examines the progress made as the organization enters Year 2 of the Theo Epstein regime.

It has been 105 years since the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.

Given that vast expanse of time, what’s a few more years in the waiting room?

That was the indirect question floated by Theo Epstein after he took over as president of baseball operations for the flawed and fabled franchise before the 2012 season.

But the appearance of setting the bar extremely low as he embarked on the most challenging task in professional sports—getting the Cubs that elusive championship—might have been astute strategy by Epstein, who inherited a mess of an organization, from top to bottom, after coming over from the Boston Red Sox.

Although the Cubs won the NL Central in 2007 and 2008, they were swept in the Division Series both years. Former general manager Jim Hendry got the OK to try to buy a World Series title from 2009-11, but an average payroll of more than $135 million during that stretch resulted in an average of only 76 wins per season. And Hendry was fired by new owner Tom Ricketts.

Epstein had assembled the rosters of two World Series winners in Boston, though the Red Sox were in rough shape when he exited Fenway Park after the 2011 season. Epstein could have chosen a softer, lower-profile landing spot than Chicago, but he actually felt right at home at Wrigley Field despite the century-plus of futility.

“When I got to Boston, they hadn’t won in 86 years,” Epstein said after taking the Cubs’ job. “We didn’t run from that challenge. We embraced it.”

Suffice to say, the 39-year-old Epstein feels the strain after a disastrous 2012 debut season on the North Side. The Cubs lost 101 games, their worst showing since going 59-103 in 1966. They failed to draw 3 million fans for the first time since 2003, and they performed like a franchise that might never win another World Series.

A review of what happened, and, more important, a preview of what lies ahead for Theo and Company:

THE QUICK TEARDOWN

Before the Cubs even took the field in 2012, Epstein was busy overhauling the entire organization.

“We decided the way to attack it was to build the best baseball operation that we could,” he said. “Try to establish a winning culture, to work as hard as possible and to bring in players who care more about each other and more about winning than the people around them thought or the external expectations, the external mindset.”

Of course, the philosophy came with a caveat: “It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Epstein started the massive rebuilding project at the top, hiring Jed Hoyer away from the San Diego Padres to be the Cubs’ general manager. Because the duo worked well together in Boston for eight years, it was a natural move. Epstein proceeded to hire Jason McLeod, another Red Sox expatriate, as director of scouting and player development. Manager Mike Quade was jettisoned and replaced by Dale Sveum. The changes continued throughout the 2012 season and into the offseason, with 25-year-old Scott Harris the most recent addition as director of baseball operations.

Alfonso Soriano was one of the few Cubs who had a productive 2012 season, but the left fielder was on the way to the San Francisco Giants in late July before he blocked the trade with his 10/5 rights. Another trade candidate, righthanded starter Matt Garza, stayed put after suffering a season-ending elbow injury in late July. And an early November trade that would have sent erratic closer Carlos Marmol to the Angels for righthander Dan Haren also fell through.

Epstein and Hoyer were quick to move as many veteran players as possible after getting the green light from Ricketts to shed bad contracts, but the Cubs didn’t have the depth to fill all of those holes and compete in 2012. En route to just the third 100-plus-loss in franchise history, the pitching staff posted a dreadful 4.51 ERA and led the NL with 573 walks. It seemed nearly every reliever got a shot to close, and the Cubs finished last in the majors with 28 saves and tied for last in save percentage (57.1).

“I wake up every day and recognize we lost 101 games and understand how painful that was for everybody, including me, and that provides further motivation to get out of this position that we’re in,” Epstein told reporters at the conclusion of last season. “I think there were a lot of positives. That core, at least in my mind, went from one player to half a dozen, and if we can do that again in 2013, and we look up and we have close to a dozen players in our core, I’ll feel great about the overall health of the organization.”

THE SLOW AND STEADY REMAKE

Epstein pushed the Red Sox over the top by drafting and developing valuable core players, including Dustin Pedroia, Jonathan Papelbon, Clay Buchholz and Jacoby Ellsbury. But he also had the financial resources to spend lavishly on David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Johnny Damon, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, so it isn’t all about scouting, drafting and computer technology.

Eventually, Epstein will venture outside of the friendly confines at Wrigley and throw big money at players acquired in trades or free agency. But after being burned by the big contracts he awarded to Crawford, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, John Lackey, J.D. Drew, Julio Lugo and others in Boston, Epstein will spend more carefully. Especially in light of some of the bad contracts (Soriano, Zambrano, Milton Bradley, Kosuke Fukudome) the Cubs handed out during Hendry’s regime.

Perhaps building from within is the way for Epstein and the Cubs eventually to grab the elusive World Series ring. While assembling a competitive roster entirely through the draft isn’t a common blueprint for a large-market team, nothing else has seemed to work for this franchise. One major league executive thinks it is a sound plan, assuming Epstein and his staff are equal parts astute and patient.

“They made the choice to go with a total organizational rebuild, everything from scouting to player development to what’s being taught at the major league level,” the executive says. “It certainly is a longer-term process that way, and given the number of years Cubs fans have waited, it took a degree of courage to go that route. And given they’re the highest-revenue team in their division and they play in a desirable market and have the revenue to spend, they didn’t have to go this route.

“They could have tried to compete at the major league level and spent more money to rebuild more quickly instead of starting at the very bottom. That was obviously a philosophical choice, but there’s no reason why they can’t win a World Series. There’s no curse or cards stacked against them that makes it more difficult for them. As for is this the way to do it, the proof will be in the pudding in the next three or four years, I would guess.”

The Cubs made their first major free-agent signing under Epstein with the addition of Edwin Jackson in December, but over the next three or four years, they will depend primarily on young players like Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo, Jeff Samardzija, Javier Baez, Albert Almora and Jorge Soler to carry the club to prominence. And they will depend on the fans’ continued patience.

Many frustrated Cubs fans are skeptical of the plan, however, and don’t want to wait to win.

“For too many years, especially the late 1990s and first half of the 2000s, the farm system and scouting department decayed, especially for position players,” says Nease, a Cubs fans since 1963. “They bought themselves into contention with aging players and got lucky on a few like Aramis Ramirez, but the pipeline of rookie talent kept getting weaker and weaker. It is bad enough that they don’t have enough of their own home-grown talent on their own roster, but they don’t even have players on other teams’ rosters.

“Also, they always get seduced by inflated batting statistics that are helped out by Wrigley. But year after year, they get position players who can’t hit well on the road and can’t take a walk. The Cubs constantly give up a lot more walks than they take and this has been going on for years.”

On Epstein’s watch, expect the changes to continue until the Cubs finally get it right.